Lady Scandal: A Sexy Historical Regency Read online

  Seeing the bare, usually gloved, hands that she knew belonged to her traversing over not marble but pliable, heated, flexing muscle brought home how very far she’d come in such a short time. All thanks to the man above her.

  With a resounding hiss and crackle, lightning spiked in her periphery.

  “Juliet…” The husky sound of his plea was answered by the dip in her stomach, by the outstretched arms that refused to lower.

  The thunderous rumble that crashed outside didn’t faze either of them.

  She was too busy scraping her palms up the coarsely soft hairs on his thighs and over the smooth, pale skin of his hips…

  “Oh God.” And poor Zeus, he looked as though he was occupied trying not to keel over. “Are you…? Saints be praised, are you…about to intentionally touch my dirk?”

  The undeniable pleading in his hoarse whisper encouraged her onward.

  “I believe I am…” Juliet answered the question she wasn’t sure Zeus knew he’d asked out loud, given his stunned expression when she anchored her fingers deeper into his muscles instead of shying away.

  The slight trembling of his legs as he straddled around her gave her the temerity to continue, loosening her grip on his thighs. She was startled when Zeus moaned, “Oh, God. Stop licking your lips like that.”

  Stilling the involuntary motion of her tongue, she slowly inched her fingertips higher, furrowed them through the dense golden hairs at his groin. She stopped just before reaching his…cock. She thought it. Then she said it. “Your cock.”

  “Oh, God. Juliet!” Shifting, he clenched his jaw, grasped his shaft in one hand, and fell forward on the opposite arm, bringing the reddened tip closer to her face. Closer to her lips.

  “Could you?” he rasped. “Would you?”

  It appeared so, because Juliet found her curiosity and desire to please him, as he’d pleased her in countless ways today, overrode inbred caution. Overruled years of repression.

  “You don’t have to,” he said swiftly when she made no move toward him.

  How could he know observing him from afar was vastly different from seeing him up close, where the heat of his body nearly poured off his skin, the searing allure of his erection simmering between them? Where the single sparkle of fluid emerging from the slit fascinated and entranced? She caught herself and just barely avoided licking her lips again.

  But she’d waited too long.

  On a harsh exhalation, he edged back. “I can wait. I did promise you patience.”

  “You did.” She slid her hand around one hard thigh and tugged him forward.

  “My lady? I meant it. You do not—”

  “I now want to,” Juliet said, repeating what he’d told her about reading his character. “Need to, I am thinking.”

  Zeus watched, awash in amazement, as she took the clear drop from his slit and wiped it across the upper swell of one breast. Her dainty hand returned and she closed it over his own white-knuckled death grip.

  Both of them holding tightly to his dirk—his arm quivering and fingers cramping from the restraint he exuded, hers resting lightly on top—she brought him to her mouth.

  Where she kissed him!

  Placed the puckered bow of her lips to his crown with a barely audible smack.

  Just when he wanted to howl, to bellow his dismay and disappointment for he’d been dreaming of so much more than a chaste kiss, she opened her mouth and her tongue made an appearance.

  Zeus stopped breathing.

  Hesitant at first, only an infinitesimal swipe. Then her tongue returned, licked again. Just the very top. Then the side. And once more, that tiny pink temptation leaving a path of wetness down the entire shaft exposed above their joined hands.

  And then—thank God Almighty—a circular swipe round the crown that had his lungs remembering to inhale on a gusty intake of air.

  A subtle mmm emerged from her throat, the exact meaning he couldn’t decipher, but the intent clear enough.

  Especially when she dug her fingernails in one buttock and urged him closer. Ever closer. Which only made his head spin because he hadn’t even realized she’d clutched him there. But Zeus was happy to comply, lurching forward to join the tip of his cock with her waiting mouth.

  As long as he lived, he would never forget the precious moments of agonized anticipation. The sight of her tongue-slicked lips opening wide to encase part of his body…

  The sublime ecstasy once the moment was realized.

  The experience of watching his dagger, his bodkin, his penis, phallus, pr-prick—to use her terms—disappear past her lips…

  The feel of the tongue he’d only barely begun to taste now tasting him. Licking, if not with skill, then with artless abandon.

  Her touch bathed away every lingering hurt, physical and emotional. She made him a new man.

  When her motions altered from licking and exploring to sucking, to drawing him so deeply, so fiercely, inside Zeus felt the wash of acceptance in every particle of his being, he worried he was about to embarrass himself—again.

  And that would never do.

  He slipped his hand from beneath hers and brought both to her temples. Tunneling his fingers through her hair, he took hold of her scalp and gently pulled her head back.

  Open-mouthed, she released him and his nearly sucked-dry staff emerged, red and thick and shining from her depths.

  Blazes! He wanted to thrust back inside and come for a sennight.

  Had to do something quick before the stirring in his ballocks came spewing out on another unplanned, ungallant display.

  She gazed up at him in the darkening room, face flushed, hair in a tangle over the arm of the settee. “Why?” It was a whisper. “Why did you stop me? I believe I found it rather enjoyable.” And sounded totally surprised by that admission.

  “Because, my sweet, ’tis your turn now.”

  “My turn?”

  While she was all soft and subdued and submissive, he took up her hand and scooted backward, trailing their intertwined fingers over one beaded breast, past the thin muslin gathered at her waist, and to her naked abdomen. Where he paused. Waited. Then said huskily, “It’s your turn to touch yourself.”

  “Zeus. I don’t…” She protested halfheartedly, but she didn’t fight him when he guided her hand the rest of the way to the juncture of her legs.

  Didn’t do anything more than give a slight wiggle to her hips, a little sigh of surrender.

  “Here now, we’ll do it together.” Zeus allowed her a moment. When she slowly nodded, he worked her fingertips just inside the swollen folds. Then, with his fingers still directing hers, he fluttered them up and down.

  Though the nails that had seized his arse earlier now clutched at his shoulder, she didn’t shy away. Not from him nor the sensations he wrought forth, the hitch to her breath, the flinching of her pelvis, both indicating how receptive, how responsive she was.

  “I— Oh!”

  At the awkwardness that threatened when she touched a part of her body she’d only before ever grazed through a washing cloth, Juliet admonished herself. There was no need to freeze, to fear the unknown. Not anymore. Because it was Zeus taking her there. Showing her something new.

  Showing her…

  As the fury outside waned, stormy day turning to peaceful night, the tempest inside wept harder and understanding dawned. “I’m wet! Slick…” Sticky and wanton and yearning for your possession.

  “You are indeed.” He released her hand but kept up the sensuous torture with his own. “Dampened.”

  “Your…dampening ‘praiseworthy actions’.”

  “Exactly. Your body preparing the way for mine.”

  And with that he leaned in between her thighs for the most intimate of kisses. After plying her with several, Juliet comprehended. “Your delightful tongue!”

  “Mmmm.”

  Her hips bucked against his mouth and she embraced the rolling waves that grew with each languid lick and furious flick. She craved that other par
t of him though. The one she’d just touched and tasted. And was now ready to claim for her own. “Zeus?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Would you bring your conversational skills to my mouth?”

  He raised his head to murmur, “Aye, my lady.”

  With one last lingering kiss to her core, he drifted up her body and nudged her lips open. Acquainting her with her own flavor, he seduced her all over again.

  As her tongue chased his, Zeus stroked his hand down her cleft and smeared her essence over his shaft. Fisting the thick column, he placed his crown to her curls and glided along her swollen folds, skimming over the entrance and the tiny nub he’d coaxed earlier, until he heard her breath catch, felt her teeth sink into his tongue.

  Knowing he’d found the place and pressure, the exact nuance between tantalize and tease she needed to gain release, he continued caressing her with his cock and (once he’d retracted his tongue) charming her with words and whispers. She writhed beneath him, and just when concern over her injured leg prodded him, she whimpered once and melted into the settee. Her moan of sublime satisfaction breezing past his ears.

  Recognizing how being with this woman made him richer than possessing any amount of money or property, Zeus inched his fingers from his excessively patient erection and spread her open. He eased inside the snug, welcoming passage that rippled around him, pausing once in place to bring his face to hers.

  Resting on his elbows above her, his body shaking with the continued effort of restraint, Zeus stared into her eyes. “My lady, my wife.”

  At her nod, he thrust home, past the final resistance and into her heart.

  “Juliet?” Wivy’s voice intruded some time later, reluctantly it sounded to Juliet, through the locked door. A trio of sharp raps followed. “Juliet! I so regret disturbing you, but we have visitors. More precisely, you have visitors.”

  “Visitors?” The man beside her roused himself to murmur. She saw his eyes blink open to startlingly swift realization of their surroundings.

  Ensconced snugly in his arms, Juliet had been watching Zeus sleep. Awash in the aftermath of his physical loving, in the surety of their emotional bond, she’d been unwilling to succumb to the lure of slumber.

  Moonlight angled in from the open windows. The storm’s fury totally spent, the ground sated—as was her curiosity about the male form, for the moment—crickets echoed her contented feelings, merrily chirping their welcome to another night. Another night which heralded another day, neither of which she need fear any longer. Not now that her Marriage Scheme had come to a splendid conclusion.

  But would Zeus share in her certainty? Or would he have regrets? Would he decry what they’d just done? Now that he’d “slept” on things, would doubts creep forth, stealing into the mind of this proud warrior she hoped to claim as her own kingly knight forevermore?

  Nay, for he smiled and pressed a tender kiss to her cheek. “My lady? It appears as though we have our first guests to welcome.”

  It did indeed.

  His actions and words easily banishing any speck of pitch-kettledness, Juliet slowly eased herself upright. Toward Wivy, she called, “Guests? At this hour?”

  Turning to Zeus, who hadn’t budged from his sprawled position behind her, Juliet felt her dratted cheeks heat. “We certainly aren’t dressed to receive callers, now are we?”

  Giving her nude form an exaggerated leer, Zeus quipped, “We certainly aren’t dressed at all.”

  “Aye!” Wivy responded in the midst of their mirth. “The vicar. I wasn’t going to disturb you, but he insists he must be on his way soon and he refuses to leave without seeing you.”

  “The vicar?” That was unpredicted.

  “Arranged by Mr. Hastings. Come to perform a wedding, dare I hope?”

  A wedding?

  “Tell him we’ll be down directly,” Zeus answered loudly before she had a chance to.

  His countenance completely solemn, only the glint in his eyes betraying the laughter they’d just shared, Zeus stood and bowed before her, in all his naked majesty. “My lady?” He rose and held his arm toward her, palm up. “If you’ll have me?”

  Forever. Heart pounding ferociously at the commitment she was about to make, confident in her decision as she’d never thought to be, Juliet placed her hand in his. “I’ll have you forever, Zeus Jupiter.”

  “Minx. That stays between us.” After giving her hand a squeeze, Zeus released her to snatch his buckskins from the floor.

  “Ah…” His head whipped to and fro. “My shirt? I seem to recall displacing it earlier. Have you any idea where it got off to?”

  Remembering exactly where he’d left it, where she’d first inhaled his strong scent, Juliet pointed toward the screen. “I do indeed.”

  Zeus quickly retreated that direction. But, lovely man, he took the time to retrieve her dress as well and toss it to her before donning his own attire.

  “Perhaps…” she said archly, tugging her dress overhead and immediately proposing once she emerged, “I could interest you in another exchange?”

  His face turned speculative and he paused in his efforts to stuff in his shirt. “What would you have of me? You’ve already stript me raw.” Though he didn’t seem to mind overly much, given how one side of his mouth quirked upward. “Turned my expectations and my life on their ear since I stepped foot into your shaky, sodden abode.”

  “Oh how you go on,” she teased, unable to subdue the spark of pure joy that flashed through her knowing she could. Tease him, that was. “I’ll grant you blind obedience in public…” Juliet let that dangle temptingly between them, “if I can call you Zeus Jupiter in private.”

  He growled. He groaned. He grinned full-out. “For blind obedience, I’ll suffer through it.”

  “You’re such a dear!” She watched him tug on his Hessians, forgoing his woolen stockings in his haste. A glance toward her discarded pale pink one had her cheeks heating all over again. “Now where did my slipper get off to?”

  She required that and her crutch in order to retrieve her undergarments strewn between here and yonder and the corner where she’d hid—and first glimpsed heaven: Zeus’ chest. Pity he’d had to cover it up. But the tingly, tender sensations between her nude thighs reminded her she still had much to cover up as well.

  “You won’t need your slipper,” he informed her, and proceeded to gather her in his arms, ignoring her shriek as he advanced straight toward the door.

  “Zeus! We can’t go down like this!”

  “Why ever not?”

  “You skipped your waistcoat and tailcoat and I’m still…still in my altogether under my dresmpfth!”

  His kiss muffled the protest and made away with her breath. “It matters not,” he said when he raised his head. “Because directly upon completion of our abbreviated nuptials, you’ll be acquainting me with your bedchamber—and before you remind me, I know it leaks. I’ll shove the bed into a dry patch tonight and climb on the roof tomorrow for an inspection, after I dispatch someone to the village with a handful of coins to procure us some real and hearty food.”

  Gracious, he was already taking charge. How wondrous!

  Balancing her against his chest, he unlocked the door and opened it a few inches for Henry who mewed a quick thanks and flew through the crack, fluffy tail held high. “Now you”—Zeus hefted her in his arms, such a delightful, protected feeling—“you behave. Or else.”

  Kicking her bare feet in a show of pure unconcern, Juliet wrapped one arm behind his neck and placed her lips to his ear. “Or else what?”

  Zeus eased the door completely open with one elbow, sliding her carefully through before imparting, “Or else I’ll tell the vicar exactly what you aren’t wearing under that pretty dress.”

  “Zeus!”

  Epilogue ~ Juliet. Memories. Home.

  “What’s that you’re concentrating on? More modifications to the building plans?”

  Zeus had wondered how long it would take his bride of two months to ask
. He’d made a great show of preparing the nib, uncapping the ink and sighing in audible satisfaction upon the completion of each word.

  He tugged her onto one leg and leaned back. “Your first official reading lesson, which just happens to coincide with my lesson in Revised Values.” Though they’d covered individual letters, life had intervened since he’d made his promise, kept him from honoring it as soon as he’d wished.

  Between spending nearly every waking moment together, and waking her in the middle of the night to create more of them, plus paying off creditors, visiting tenants and working with Olivia and her man to secure the necessary workforce to adequately improve the ramshackle estates, “hectic” hardly described the past few weeks.

  Glorious weeks.

  Inhaling the delicate scent of the bounty in his arms, Zeus extended one hand to slide the foolscap toward them. He put his finger beneath the first word. “This one, I believe you know?”

  After studying it a moment, she looked at him in surprise. “That’s me. Juliet.”

  A broad grin widened his cheeks. “So it is.” Allowing his finger to track each word, he read, “Things I Value—Juliet. Memories. Home. It’s a far cry different from my previous list.”

  “I approve!” She slung her arms around his neck. “Care to share the former?”

  “Mum was on it, of course. So was Amherst, as were time and money.” But time with his bride, jointly discussing how best to spend his money, had swiftly led to a revelation: Neither of those was worth spit unless he splurged them on things that mattered.

  “Want to hear my list? Then you can show me how to write it.”

  She scooted off and stood over his shoulder while he dipped the pen and prepared to inscribe her words. “I await your pleasure, my dear,” he prompted when she remained silent.

  “My husband.” He wrote, adding Zeus in parentheses when she requested it, saying that was definitely one she wanted to learn.